This invention relates to a computer system, and in particular to computer tools to improve user perspectives and enhance navigation or browsing of information sources stored in or available via the computer.
As computer accessing of large quantities of information increases, the ability of users to navigate large information spaces and to maintain visualization or personal perspectives thereof decreases [1] (bracketed numbers reference publications identified in Appendix A).
The need for this type of control has been expressed most recently by Furnas [2], Mills [3], Degen [4], and Chimera [5].
Furnas"" solution to the problem of understanding the limited information available in a window of large information structures is to provide in the window the detailed region to be considered in the context of important preceding or succeeding parts of the large structure. For example, to edit lines in the middle of a program, the window would also display, say, declarations at the beginning of the program. No magnification of desired information or shrinkage of undesired information is employed; rather, the desired program information is normally displayed, and many parts of the program are omitted from the display.
Mills et al addressed the issue of giving users access to video data by magnifying time through successive hierarchial extraction of increasingly detailed segments. Each expanded segment view was displayed in a separate window of the display. And each segment view, as well as the total video view, including the time lines associated therewith, were linearly arranged from a temporal standpoint.
Degen et al moved marks on audio tape to a digitized counterpart document scroll bar, and let the user change the visual scaling of time within a single window, as well as the speed of playback. But, again, the visual representations, whether of the original size or of the zoomed expanded size, had a linear temporal structure.
Chimera, on the other hand, maintained a full display within the window but was unable to provide a zooming feature or expanded segment view of a text listing. Instead, Chimera used scroll bars that, independent of the original data""s representation, indicate relative values of list attributes by respectively scaling proportions of list item indicators, according to those attributes, in the scroll bars.
Furnas shows in a single window multiple fisheye views of document segments. But Furnas doesn""t disclose how a user can select which segments to display, or the means to magnify certain segments, or the means to control the degree of magnification, nor does Furnas provided a scroll bar or its equivalent as a convenient interface for the user to manipulate the display.
An object of the invention is a computer system providing improved means to allow users to extract important segments of computer-displayed information in the form of video, sound, graphics or text while maintaining a general view of the information.
Another object of the invention is a computerized system and method to enable users better to navigate or visualize large information spaces.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, means are provided to enable a user to visibly mark points or segments of displayed information, which will enable the user to quickly navigate to the marked displays.
In another aspect of the invention, a scroll bar is displayed alongside the information display, and the visible mark or marks appears on the scroll bar at locations corresponding to the desired information.
In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, a computerized system provides the user with means to shrink less important or less significant portions of the information displayed, with the result of magnifying the portions that the user deems significant. In accordance with this aspect, the invention can be viewed as a user-friendly relativity controller tool that enables users to specify what is important to them, and modify the portion of their perceptual space that that information takes up, in a fisheye variant.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the resultant information can still occupy the same window where originally displayed, but with certain segments shrunk and other segments in comparison standing out or becoming more prominent..
In accordance with still other aspects of the invention, the relativity Controller of the invention is implemented by simply pointing to the screen and actuating a control device. In a preferred embodiment, a mouse button is pressed to mark the beginning and end of segments of the information to be marked. A further feature is that multiple segments can be marked in this manner. Thus, the relativity controller of the invention not only allows users to mark the scope of one or more salient segments, but also will cause the display to simultaneously shrink the non-marked portions and in effect zoom into the multiple-marked segments in a single step. The result is a non-linear display of the available information. As a further feature, simultaneously with selective zooming of the information, the display of the scroll bar is correspondingly modified to show in the context of the total information the marked and non-marked portions of the displayed information.
The major benefits is to allow users to quickly navigate through a large information space and to control the salience of the displayed information in the context of the full display while conserving display area, sometime called desktop real estate. Moreover, maintaining a single window for the data and giving users the ability to visually navigate across the whole data via the scroll bar together with the ability to select the salient segments as well as the level of zoom, all in a single step, greatly enhances the ability of the user to cope intelligently and rapidly with large information structures containing large numbers of objects.
The above and further objects, details and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments thereof, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.